Big Papa Records

If jazz is your thing, then Big Papa Records is the place, its shelves packed with fine albums from a number of jazz styles including early jazz, fusion and improv. US rock, country rock, progressive rock, folk and blues all get a look in, too, alongside records from Brazil’s current rock bands.

The shop is run by husband-and-wife team, the Cuban Carlos Suarez, who has been working with records and music for 30 years, and the Brazilian translator and record collector Katia Maria Pimentel.

The couple started out selling vinyl at the long-running Tangerino record fair, on Avenida Paulista. These days, they are curators of the bi-monthly record fair Os Melhores Discos do Mundo, which gathers around twenty exhibitors while DJs spin the likes of rock, blues and rockabilly – on vinyl, naturally. This once nomadic fair now has a permanent home at Paribar, the downtown restaurant-cum-bar (Praça Dom José Gaspar 42, Centro, 3237 0771).

The store’s collection of nearly 1,500 records gets a boost after each of Suarez’s biannual record-hunting trips to the US.